WEBVTT

00:00:01.015 --> 00:00:04.097
This story starts with these two --

00:00:04.097 --> 00:00:05.123
my kids.

00:00:05.314 --> 00:00:07.020
We were hiking in the Oakland woods

00:00:07.020 --> 00:00:11.154
when my daughter noticed
a plastic tub of cat litter in a creek.

00:00:11.647 --> 00:00:13.333
She looked at me and said,

00:00:13.333 --> 00:00:15.976
"Daddy ...

00:00:15.976 --> 00:00:17.538
that doesn't go there."

00:00:17.538 --> 00:00:18.538
When she said that,

00:00:18.538 --> 00:00:20.024
it reminded me of summer camp.

00:00:20.024 --> 00:00:21.505
On the morning of visiting day,

00:00:21.505 --> 00:00:25.117
right before they'd let our anxious
parents come barreling through the gates,

00:00:25.117 --> 00:00:26.471
our camp director would say,

00:00:26.471 --> 00:00:28.858
"Quick! Everyone go pick up
five pieces of litter."

00:00:29.013 --> 00:00:32.130
You get a couple hundred kids
each picking up five pieces,

00:00:32.130 --> 00:00:34.738
and pretty soon you've got
a much cleaner camp.

00:00:34.738 --> 00:00:35.790
So I thought,

00:00:35.790 --> 00:00:40.143
why not apply that crowdsourced
cleanup model to the entire planet?

00:00:40.350 --> 00:00:43.133
And that was the inspiration
for Litterati.

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:43.434 --> 00:00:46.509
The vision is to create
a litter-free world.

00:00:46.806 --> 00:00:48.321
Let me show you how it started.

00:00:48.321 --> 00:00:51.707
I took a picture of a cigarette
using Instagram.

00:00:52.302 --> 00:00:54.295
Then I took another photo ...

00:00:54.295 --> 00:00:55.919
and another photo ...

00:00:55.919 --> 00:00:56.993
and another photo ...

00:00:56.993 --> 00:00:58.242
and I noticed two things.

00:00:58.242 --> 00:01:02.049
One: litter became artistic
and approachable.

00:01:02.350 --> 00:01:03.347
And two:

00:01:03.347 --> 00:01:04.554
at the end of a few days,

00:01:04.554 --> 00:01:05.860
I had 50 photos on my phone

00:01:05.860 --> 00:01:07.569
and I had picked up each piece,

00:01:07.569 --> 00:01:09.978
and I realized that I was keeping a record

00:01:09.978 --> 00:01:13.217
of the positive impact
I was having on the planet.

00:01:13.217 --> 00:01:15.166
That's 50 less things that you might see,

00:01:15.166 --> 00:01:16.460
or you might step on,

00:01:16.460 --> 00:01:18.507
or some bird might eat.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:18.769 --> 00:01:21.556
So I started telling people
what I was doing,

00:01:21.556 --> 00:01:24.159
and they started participating.

00:01:24.967 --> 00:01:26.960
One day,

00:01:26.960 --> 00:01:30.295
this photo showed up from China,

00:01:30.295 --> 00:01:34.928
and that's when I realized that Litterati
was more than just pretty pictures;

00:01:34.928 --> 00:01:38.441
we were becoming a community
that was collecting data.

00:01:38.917 --> 00:01:40.807
Each photo tells a story.

00:01:41.447 --> 00:01:43.663
It tells us who picked up what,

00:01:43.663 --> 00:01:45.785
a geotag tells us where

00:01:45.785 --> 00:01:47.869
and a [time stamp] tells us when.

00:01:48.062 --> 00:01:50.714
So I built a Google map,

00:01:50.714 --> 00:01:54.680
and started plotting the points
where pieces were being picked up.

00:01:54.680 --> 00:01:56.375
And through that process,

00:01:56.375 --> 00:01:58.657
the community grew,

00:01:58.657 --> 00:02:00.296
and the data grew.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:00.854 --> 00:02:04.463
My two kids go to school
right in that bullseye.

00:02:05.125 --> 00:02:06.424
Litter.

00:02:06.424 --> 00:02:08.675
It's blending into
the background of our lives,

00:02:08.675 --> 00:02:11.120
but what if we brought it
to the forefront?

00:02:11.360 --> 00:02:14.295
What if we understood exactly
what was on our streets,

00:02:14.295 --> 00:02:15.631
our sidewalks

00:02:15.631 --> 00:02:17.160
and our schoolyards?

00:02:17.160 --> 00:02:20.369
How might we use that data
to make a difference?

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:21.276 --> 00:02:22.497
Well, let me show you.

00:02:22.497 --> 00:02:23.882
The first is with cities.

00:02:24.577 --> 00:02:29.207
San Francisco wanted to understand
what percentage of litter was cigarettes.

00:02:29.207 --> 00:02:30.361
Why?

00:02:30.361 --> 00:02:31.786
To create a tax.

00:02:32.098 --> 00:02:35.554
So they put a couple of people
in the streets with pencils and clipboards

00:02:35.554 --> 00:02:37.919
who walked around collecting information

00:02:37.919 --> 00:02:41.030
which led to a 20-cent tax
on all cigarette sales.

00:02:41.899 --> 00:02:44.075
And then they got sued ...

00:02:44.075 --> 00:02:45.182
by big tobacco,

00:02:45.182 --> 00:02:48.321
who claimed that collecting information
with pencils and clipboards

00:02:48.321 --> 00:02:51.166
is neither precise nor provable.

00:02:51.629 --> 00:02:55.332
The city called me and asked
if our technology could help ...

00:02:55.332 --> 00:02:59.059
not sure they realized that our
technology was my Instagram account --

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:59.059 --> 00:03:00.059
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:00.059 --> 00:03:01.554
But I said, "Yes we can."

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:01.554 --> 00:03:02.550
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:02.550 --> 00:03:06.109
And we can tell you if that's
a Parliament or a Pall Mall.

00:03:06.109 --> 00:03:09.673
Plus, every photograph
is geotagged and [time stamped],

00:03:09.673 --> 00:03:11.385
providing you with proof.

00:03:11.839 --> 00:03:15.314
Four days and 5,000 pieces later,

00:03:15.314 --> 00:03:20.275
our data was used in court to not
only defend but double the tax,

00:03:20.275 --> 00:03:24.621
generating an annual recurring
revenue of four million dollars

00:03:24.621 --> 00:03:26.916
for San Francisco to clean itself up.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:28.014 --> 00:03:30.168
Now, during that process
I learned two things.

00:03:30.168 --> 00:03:33.039
One: Instagram is not the right tool --

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:33.039 --> 00:03:34.044
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:34.044 --> 00:03:35.420
so we built an app.

00:03:35.420 --> 00:03:36.422
And two:

00:03:36.422 --> 00:03:37.487
if you think about it,

00:03:37.487 --> 00:03:40.941
every city in the world
has a unique litter fingerprint,

00:03:40.941 --> 00:03:44.800
and that fingerprint provides
both the source of the problem

00:03:44.800 --> 00:03:46.987
and the path to the solution.

00:03:47.646 --> 00:03:50.048
If you could generate a revenue stream

00:03:50.048 --> 00:03:52.454
just by understanding
the percentage of cigarettes,

00:03:52.454 --> 00:03:54.953
well, what about coffee cups ...

00:03:54.953 --> 00:03:56.682
or soda cans ...

00:03:56.682 --> 00:03:58.357
or plastic bottles?

00:03:58.501 --> 00:04:00.367
If you could fingerprint San Francisco,

00:04:00.367 --> 00:04:02.022
well, how about Oakland ...

00:04:02.022 --> 00:04:03.542
or Amsterdam ...

00:04:03.542 --> 00:04:07.092
or somewhere much closer to home?

00:04:07.408 --> 00:04:08.891
And what about brands?

00:04:08.891 --> 00:04:10.815
How might they use this data

00:04:10.815 --> 00:04:15.027
to align their environmental
and economic interests?

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:15.734 --> 00:04:19.043
There's a block in downtown Oakland
that's covered in blight.

00:04:19.421 --> 00:04:23.525
The Litterati community got together
and picked up 1500 pieces.

00:04:23.939 --> 00:04:25.353
And here's what we learned.

00:04:25.353 --> 00:04:28.405
Most of that litter came from
a very well know taco brand.

00:04:29.810 --> 00:04:34.605
Most of that brand's litter
were their own hot sauce packets,

00:04:34.605 --> 00:04:39.021
and most of those hot sauce packets
hadn't even been opened.

00:04:40.132 --> 00:04:42.870
The problem and the path
to the solution --

00:04:42.870 --> 00:04:46.992
well, maybe that brand only
gives out hot sauce upon request,

00:04:46.992 --> 00:04:49.024
or installs bulk dispensers,

00:04:49.024 --> 00:04:51.441
or comes up with more
sustainable packaging.

00:04:51.441 --> 00:04:54.433
How does a brand take
an environmental hazard,

00:04:54.433 --> 00:04:56.462
turn it into an economic engine,

00:04:56.462 --> 00:04:59.015
and become an industry hero?

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:59.475 --> 00:05:01.606
If you really want to create change,

00:05:01.606 --> 00:05:04.222
there's no better place to start
than with our kids.

00:05:04.558 --> 00:05:07.907
A group of fifth graders picked up
1247 pieces of litter

00:05:07.907 --> 00:05:09.778
just in their schoolyard.

00:05:09.778 --> 00:05:12.333
And they learned that the most
common type of litter

00:05:12.333 --> 00:05:15.567
were the plastic straw wrappers
from their own cafeteria.

00:05:16.090 --> 00:05:18.642
So these kids went to their
principal and asked,

00:05:18.642 --> 00:05:20.890
"Why are we still buying straws?"

00:05:21.286 --> 00:05:22.824
And they stopped.

00:05:23.064 --> 00:05:26.664
And they learned that individually
they could each make a difference,

00:05:26.664 --> 00:05:29.389
but together they created an impact.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:29.702 --> 00:05:33.626
It doesn't matter if you're
a student or a scientist,

00:05:33.626 --> 00:05:36.881
whether you live in Honolulu or Hanoi,

00:05:36.881 --> 00:05:39.634
this is a community for everyone.

00:05:39.974 --> 00:05:44.792
It started because of two little kids
in the Northern California woods,

00:05:44.792 --> 00:05:47.606
and today it's spread across the world.

00:05:48.026 --> 00:05:49.797
And you know how we're getting there?

00:05:50.179 --> 00:05:52.211
One piece at a time.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:52.556 --> 00:05:53.794
Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:53.794 --> 00:05:55.367
(Applause)